


jagged shards of names that you once were

by Duck_Life



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Depersonalization, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Memory Loss, Names, POV Second Person, Spoilers for Episode: e165 Revolutions (The Magnus Archives), Trans Martin Blackwood, canon-typical face stealing, compelling, jon tries to kin martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25659205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Jon rides a carousel.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	jagged shards of names that you once were

The thing that has never been Sasha is ash. Still, the carousel spins. Still it plays its merry tune. You buckle, hands pressed against your knees to keep yourself upright. The thing is dead, but still you can feel power surging through you, the reality of what you’ve just done sinking in. 

“ _ Smote _ ” is the word Martin used. Right. 

“We should go,” you mumble, but your head is reeling. Vaguely, you hear Martin ask if this means the merry-go-round will stop, and you don’t know but then suddenly you do. You do know.

No. It won’t stop. It will continue to spin, dragging its senseless, nameless prisoners along with it as the tinkling tune echoes around them. “We need to go,” you say, desperate as the adrenaline fades away and panic and shame flood in. “ _ Please _ .” 

“Alright,” Martin says, sobering when he sees the look on your face. “Lead on.” 

And you do, you try, but you only make it a few steps. You can still hear Not-Sasha’s screams reverberating in your mind, mixing and melding with the music of the merry-go-round. You turned the Eye on her, and the Eye obeyed, and it makes you feel good and it makes you feel dreadful. 

And Martin is at your side, bemused and just happy to be alive, unaware that he’s walking side-by-side with a murderer and a monster, and your stomach roils with that knowledge. If you’d eaten anything— anything at all in the past few days, months, you might vomit. But food isn’t what sustains you now.

For a bizarre moment, you wonder if you’re about to start vomiting back up the last statement, disjointed poetry bursting out of you in a heaving cacophony. But all that comes out are a few shaky breaths, stuttered around the clamoring of your heart. 

“Jon?”

“I need— I need—” you stammer, eyes raking across the barren land, past the glimmering carousel. “Can I just have, um, a moment? I just need to… I’m still…” You don’t know how to explain it to him, how to put into words the relief and guilt mingling in your mind right now. Yes, you’re glad Not-Sasha can’t hurt you, can’t hurt Martin. Yes, you know she was evil and a part of you feels glad she’s dead. 

But she was also the only Sasha you still remember. (Even Knowing, as you do, you still can’t quite picture the real one’s face.) And “smiting” her feels somehow like murdering your friend and colleague, even here, even now. 

And it felt good. 

That’s probably the worst part. 

“I’ll… I’ll just be over there,” Martin says, pointing. “You’re sure you’re okay… ?”

“I just need a moment,” you repeat, not really sure what a second alone is going to accomplish. You just can’t have him here right now, smiling at you, loving you, when you feel the way that you do. When you are the thing that you are. 

So Martin steps away, backs off into the dust and dirt of the ruined world while you draw closer to the carousel, struggling to catch your breath. Sasha is dead, and now Not-Sasha is dead as well. Because of you. 

Both of them, because of you.

All these deaths piled up on your shoulders— Sasha, Leitner, Tim. And yet you stand. And yet you live, live to kill again. And the music from the carousel roars in your ears like the thudding of your heart. 

It’s not so fast, not now that you’re closer. It isn’t spinning very fast at all. The faceless riders that pass you do not blur with speed. They’re moving slow enough that you can look into their eyes, spinning helplessly in their sockets. 

Close like this, with the carousel moving slowly enough for you to watch, you can see that they aren’t all without faces. A few of the carousel riders wear new faces, noses and cheeks and chins that don’t quite match the skin of their arms and necks, blood dripping down the torn shreds around their hairlines. 

They’re fascinating.

Beautiful, in a way, new people cobbled together out of old parts. Take a name, take a face, take a body, slap it all together. People put together piecemeal. 

There is an empty horse available. And you…

The carousel is not so fast, after all. The music is loud and grinding but… pleasant, in its way. It is not the staticky, echoing scream of Not-Sasha’s desperate death throes. It is something else, something different. Something interesting. 

You’re closer to the carousel than you remember choosing to be. And you think, suddenly, of the merry-go-round at the London Zoo. You’d climbed aboard a bright horse with a cherry-red saddle, clung to the bar as the carousel spun and spun. It was thrilling. Fun. Kind of a relief. 

Your hands are braced against the platform before you make a conscious decision to approach it. As if you’re boarding a normal merry-go-round in a world that makes sense. You swing your leg over the swirling side and pull yourself up onto the carousel. 

The world spins and you spin with it. Music blankets you like welcoming arms, a melody that surrounds you and entrances you until you find yourself seated on a carousel horse, knuckles white against the gold bar extending up through the top of the merry-go-round.   
  
Round and round and round and round and round and round you go, until there is no “you” anymore, just the endless circling and cycling, the circus music surrounding you and driving out any thoughts of self-preservation or self-possession or self. 

Hands reach for you. They want your face, want it because it is  _ symbolically _ appropriate, want it despite the round scars that mar its surface or perhaps  _ because _ of the scars,  _ because _ of the power and trauma that reside within your skin. 

You don’t like it.

The jaunty music rises, suffocates you with sound, and you realize that you want to get off the horse and walk away. You want to let go, want to stop spinning spinning spinning but you find you can’t leave. The other riders clamor for your face, for your skin, for your name, and you clutch the peeling, vibrant paint of the carousel horse in helpless terror. 

Distantly, it occurs to you that you might be permitted to leave if you can remember your name. What was it? Thomas, Daniel? You think of the name Michael, and it makes your stomach sour. The carousel spins on and on. 

Someone is shouting, but it’s hard to hear over the sound of the carousel. It doesn’t matter. He’s no one. You’re no one. If you just keep hanging on, maybe there will be a name for you to snatch up like a treasure, maybe there will be a face that’s all yours. There are bright mirrors circling the inside of the carousel, and you don’t recognize the man who looks back at you from the glittering surface. It scares you. Maybe if you had the right face, you’d recognize yourself. 

The shouting becomes louder, closer, and you try to focus on the music and drown out the shouting. You try to remember who you are, but the music and the shouting begin to blend into a crescendo of confusion and nothingness. 

And then there is a hand on your arm, and someone wrenches you from your brightly painted horse. You fall from the carousel, the world spinning around you as you come crashing to the ground. Your head swims, and you try to push yourself back up, to climb back aboard your abandoned horse, but it’s hard remembering which arms and legs are yours. 

And then the hands are back, touching your arms, your shoulders. The person has stopped shouting, and now he just leans over you. Concern and panic bloom on his beautiful face. “Hey… hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

You shove against the stranger, push his grasping hands away from you. The stranger wants your name, wants to take it away from you and you can’t remember what it is but you know that you  _ need it _ . Need it to be a person. This man can’t have it. 

The man straightens out and moves closer, his hand raising up to brush against your cheek, to— to  _ take _ , to  _ steal _ , to peel your face from your skull and hoard it for himself, leaving you a grinning faceless freak with no self to cling to. He will do this to you, you’re certain of it, and you can’t have that and so you lunge at him, attacking viciously.

“Your name,” you whisper to the stranger, licking your lips. “What’s your name? Give it to me.”

The stranger looks as if he’s about to answer— he opens his mouth, ready to oblige, but then he hesitates. “You… you can’t have it.” 

You snarl, the noise wretched and musical, and then you’re pinning the man to the ground, craning over him and looking into his wide, terrified eyes. “ _ What’s your name _ ?” you say again, only this time something rises in your voice, staticky and impossible to ignore. 

The man practically sobs when you rip his name from his trembling lips. “Martin! Martin Blackwood.” 

“Martin,” you repeat, as if tasting the name on your tongue. “Martin.” It’s a good name, strong. A real person’s name, not something belonging to a thing on a merry-go-round or an imprisoned music box dancer. A real name for a real person. 

Could be yours now. 

“You have one too,” the man beneath him swears. He is Martin Blackwood, but not for long. “You have your own name. I know you still remember it.” 

You pause. “My name… is Mar—”

“No, no,” the man says, eyes blazing as he watches you. His gaze is scalding. He makes you feel too seen, too known, like he’s stripped away all your masks and your face… Your face. Do you have a face? Did you ever have a face? Do you need to take one from somebody else? “You  _ have _ a name. Remember it,  _ please _ . Can’t you try and remember it?”

“If you  _ know it _ why don’t you just— ?”

“Because I’m scared if I say it out loud one of those  _ things _ will snatch it up instead,” the man cries out, and you realize suddenly that you’re still kneeling in the dirt so close to the swirling carousel. Faceless, nameless riders pass you by as the music plays, discordant, lovely and horrible. “And it’s yours.  _ Your _ name.”

“My… my name.” A shaking hand comes up to cover your mouth, and it takes you a moment to realize the hand is your own. “I d- I don’t…” 

“It’s okay,” the man says. “Let me up. Let me up, and we can… can walk away. We can walk away from here and be safe, somewhere else.” You don’t move. “Please.” 

“My face…”

“Your face is still your face,” the man says. “I’m looking at it. I remember it— your eyes, your nose, your scars. All… all gorgeous. All you. That’s  _ you _ , J— that, that’s you.”

You latch onto the small sound he made before he could stop himself.  _ Juh _ — J. G? George? Georgie, Georgie… close, but wrong, all wrong. Joseph? Jordan? 

Jonah?

Is your name Jonah? Was your name Jonah when you first climbed aboard the carousel? 

“Please,” the man says again, but he doesn’t understand. He still has the same name and face he started out with, and you… you… He doesn’t understand. 

Identity slips around you and off of you like water, like smoke. In a small voice, you tell this stranger, “I don’t know you. I d— I don’t know me.” 

“I do,” he says, gripping both of your hands in his. “Just… come with me. We can walk away from the merry-go-round, just you and me. Alright?” 

You are scared, terrified to believe this man who could so easily be lying, could so easily take everything you are and twist it and use it to fool everyone, could climb inside your skin and wear you if he had the inclination. All you have to go on is his word.

But the alternative is returning to the demented carousel and clambering atop one of those smiling plastic horses. 

“Okay.” You sit back, releasing the man. He stands, shakily, and then he reaches a hand down to help you up. You imagine his reaching fingers digging into your flesh, tearing it off of you like an eager child unwrapping Christmas presents. You swallow hard and grasp his hand, letting him lift you to a stand. 

The music softens as you move away, not completely gone but quieter, less obstructive. Thoughts begin to coagulate in your mind, more structured and stable than before. You climbed onto the carousel. You’re no longer on the carousel. This man is holding your hand. This man told you his name is Martin Blackwood, and you tried to take it from him but he didn’t let you. 

You are walking away from the carousel.

Martin Blackwood does not let go of your hand. 

Some distance away, the stranger— Martin— evidently decides it’s safe enough and he sits, urging you to join him. “How are you feeling?” he says, brows drawing together in concern. 

“I don’t… I don’t know,” you tell him, drawing your knees toward your chest. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know who I am, or… Martin. Martin. That’s… your name. Do I have a name?”

“You have a name,” Martin promises. “ _ You have a name. _ ”

“I…” Something brushes at the edge of your mind, some kind of title. A label. A name? “The Archivist—”

“No, n-no… You still have a name, a real one.” Martin’s voice is so kind, so gentle. Something in you is still terrified to trust it. To trust him. 

“I don’t remember…”

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” 

“Who am I?” you ask him, feeling pathetic. “Who was I?”

“You… you’re someone I love very much,” Martin says. It looks like it’s taking him a lot of effort to remain calm, and a vague feeling of guilt drifts through you. You did this to him. You made him worry like this, because he loves you and you aren’t even a person. “You’re from London— well, uh, Bournemouth originally. You’re, um. You like cats.” 

You realize as he’s speaking that you like the sound of his voice. The music of the merry-go-round drew you in like something toxic and enticing, but Martin Blackwood’s voice sounds safe and warm. Enticing, yes, but in an entirely different way. Like the glow of a fire in the hearth or the smell of old books. 

“You used to hate poetry, but… but you like it now,” Martin rambles, struggling to fill in the gaps for you. It seems an impossible task— your sense of self is more gaps than anything else right now, a chasm of nothingness interspersed with flashes of lights and strange music. Faces swirl in your memory. It feels like trying to read a newspaper while it’s in the process of being burned, nouns and names charring and floating away. “Don’t know what changed, you… you said you’d ‘mellowed’ on it, whatever that’s s’posed to mean. Uh, one time at the London Zoo you got on the carousel there— the  _ normal _ carousel— and had a fantastic time, apparently. You… you told me this, like, an hour ago.” 

“An hour ago,” you repeat, dazed. “I knew you an hour ago?” 

“I mean, time doesn’t really  _ work _ here, I know, but… yeah, basically,” Martin says. “You knew everything. You  _ know _ everything, I mean, literally everything. You don’t remember?” 

“Know everything,” you mumble, unsure what that’s supposed to mean. “Can’t… I don’t… Martin,” you say, scared that if you use his name you risk stealing it from him, at the same time relishing the sound of it in your own voice. It sounds familiar. Safe. “Martin. I can’t be a person if I don’t have a name.” 

Martin sighs, and then he pulls you against him. His arms wrap around you, and that feeling of familiarity comes back. Not the uncanny fear of something  _ almost _ right, something  _ just slightly  _ off. True familiarity. Comfort. 

“You can be a person without a name,” Martin says slowly. “I mean, me, I… It took me a long time to find my name. You know? For like a year I just kept bouncing between different ones. Spent a lot of time browsing baby name sites, heh. I did finally decide on ‘Martin,’ and it’s… it fits. And I like it, and I’m glad I found it. But… I was still  _ me _ even before I figured out my name. I was still a person.” 

Still a person.

Still you. 

Somehow, knowing that— that even if you don’t have a name you’re still real, that you may be fumbling over forgotten identity but you still have a self to come back to— gets your mind to finally relax. You relax enough that the answers aren’t so far away anymore. Like as soon as you realized you’d survive without a name, your name began to rematerialize. 

“Jonathan.” The ground feels steady beneath you once again. “My name is Jonathan.” 

“Yes,” Martin says, looking relieved as he starts to cry. You reach up to wipe away his tears with a hand that is wrapped in skin that belongs only to you, a hand that is yours, that is Right. You are Jonathan, and you are okay. 

“You call me Jon,” you remember. 

“Yeah,” Martin says, nodding as the tears keep falling. “Yeah, I mean, most… m-most everyone does, really. But, yeah. Jon.”

“ _ Martin _ .” You pull him closer to you, bury your face in his jacket as your body begins to shake. “I don’t know why I— the music, i-it was so loud and I suddenly I was up there, and they… th-they took, tried to take—”

“I’ve got you,” Martin says, planting a kiss on your forehead. And it feels good, affirming—  _ your _ forehead,  _ your _ face,  _ Jon’s _ face. You are you and no one else, and now that you’ve remembered that it can’t be taken from you again. “You… remember me now, right?”

You smile, clinging to the one you love as tight as you can. “Of course,” you say. “Martin K. Blackwood.” 

“Just checking.” 

You’re yourself, and Martin is Martin. The world is a mess, but at least, for now, you know who you are. 

Far away, the carousel continues to spin. 


End file.
